I fought the shiver and failed. “His name is Blake and were you eavesdropping, Daemon?”
“I was keeping an eye on things.” The tip of his nose brushed the side of my neck and my fingers spasmed against the stainless steel sink. “So, his helping you is amazing?”
Closing my eyes, I cursed under my breath. “He’s putting himself at risk, Daemon. Whether you like him or not, you have to give him props for that.”
“I don’t have to give him anything other than the ass-kicking he deserves.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. “I don’t want you doing this.”
“Daemon—”
“And it has nothing to do with my raging dislike of the boy.” His hands left the counter and found my hips. “Or the fact that—”
“That you’re jealous?” I said, turning my cheek so that it was daringly close to his lips.
“Me? Jealous of him? No. What I was going to say was, or the fact that he has a stupid name. Blake? It rhymes with flake. Come on.”
I rolled my eyes, but then he straightened and tugged me against him. With my back flush against his front, he wrapped his arms around my waist. Dizzying warmth zinged through my veins. Why, oh why, did he always have to be so damn close?
“Kitten, I don’t trust him. Everything about him is too convenient.”
To me, Daemon’s reasons for not trusting him were too obvious. I wiggled free, managing to get myself turned around so I faced him. His hands fell back to the sink. “I don’t want to talk about Blake.”
One dark brow arched. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Last night.”
He stared at me a moment, then backed off. Retreated all the way to the other side of the kitchen table as if he were suddenly afraid of me. I folded my arms. “Actually, I wanted to finish the conversation we were having before Blake came over.”
“Which is about last night.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, dragging out the word.
Daemon scratched the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “I don’t even know what I was going to say to you.”
My brows flew up. What a disappointment.
“Look, last night I was mad. I was also a little caught off guard with…with everything.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Anyway, that’s not important. This thing with Bart is.”
I opened my mouth, but he went on. “Part of me just wants to snatch him up and get rid of him. It would be easy.” My mouth hit the floor this time, and his smile was cold. “I’m being serious, Kitten. He’s not just a danger to you, but if he’s playing us, he’s a danger to Dee. So I want her kept as far away from this as possible.”
“Of course,” I murmured. There was no way I’d involve her.
His muscled arms folded, and he became all business. “And going along with everything will keep tabs on him. So, you were right last night about that.”
This wasn’t the part of last night’s conversation I wanted to talk about. After seeing how affected he was when he’d thought I’d gone out on a date with Blake—even though he seemed to have gotten over that pretty quickly—and spending all day feeling heartsick and shattered, I wanted to talk to him about us. About what I’d realized as I moped around the house all day.
“I don’t like this, but…” He paused. “But I’ll ask you one more time to not do this with him. Trust that I can find something out that can help you—help us.”
I wanted to tell him yes, but how was Daemon going to ask anyone without arousing suspicion? If the DOD was everywhere, who could say there weren’t Luxen working for them? Anything was possible.
Since I didn’t answer right away, he seemed to know what my decision was, because he made this laugh/inhale sound and nodded. A splinter pierced my heart.
“Okay. You need to get some rest. Tomorrow is a big day. More Butler. Yay.”
And then he walked out. Actually walked out of the kitchen instead of doing that super-fast thing he usually did. And I stood there, wondering what the hell just went down and why I never stopped him and told him what I was thinking.
What I was feeling.
Courage—I really needed to find the courage to tell him how I felt tomorrow, before things went further south between us.
Chapter 20
Days and then weeks went by. Each morning started the same as the one before. I’d wake up dizzy, feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. Every day the dark smudges under my eyes grew more prominent.
I didn’t speak to my mom most mornings, which blew, because that was the only time we really got to see each other. She was busy with work and Will, and I was busy with school; Blake; and a distant, closed-off Daemon. Who spent most of the practices watching Blake like a hawk does when searching for prey.
A frosty air had developed between Daemon and me, and no matter how many times I tried to start up a conversation about our relationship, he was quick to shut me down. My heart ached.
Even though he didn’t stop the training sessions and rarely missed them, he was still dead set against them. Most of our time alone consisted of him trying to convince me that Blake was no good. That there was something inherently wrong with the boy, other than the fact he was a hybrid. Like me.
But as the weeks passed and the DOD didn’t storm the house for me, I chalked it up to Daemon’s rightful paranoia. He had reason not to trust the guy. Given what happened with Dawson and Bethany, he was leery of all humans.
And Blake did his best to handle Daemon. I had to give it to him. Not many people would keep coming back, especially considering I sucked butt at the whole ability thing and Daemon made him feel less than welcome. Blake was patient and supportive, while Daemon was the pissy pink elephant in the room with the bad attitude.
All the training after school affected any and all social life. Everyone knew that Blake and I were hanging out. No one, not even Dee, realized that Daemon was there, too. Since she was spending all of her time over at Adam’s, she didn’t know where Daemon was or what he was doing. So Carissa and Lesa believed that Blake and I were dating, and I’d given up on trying to convince them otherwise. And it blew, because they thought I was so wrapped up in him that nothing else mattered. Without even doing it, I’d turned into one of those girls whose life ceases to exist outside of her boyfriend.
And I didn’t even have a boyfriend.
Their detailed attempts to draw me back into their world were incessant, but each time Dee wanted to take a shopping trip or Lesa wanted to grab something to eat after school, I had to turn them down.
My evenings were all about training. There was no time for reading. No time for my blog. Those things I once spent all my free time doing were now pushed to the side.
I always asked Blake the same question before we got started. “Have you seen any Arum?”
The answer was always the same. “No.”
And then Daemon would show up and things usually got crazy at some point. Blake would try to teach me while ignoring the homicidal alien taking up way too much room.
“Technically, whenever we use our abilities, we are sending a piece of ourselves,” he explained. “Like if I want to pick something up, a part of me is doing that as an extension of me. It’s why using our powers weakens us.”
That really made no sense to me, but I nodded. Daemon rolled his eyes.
Blake laughed. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Nope.” I smiled.
“All right, back to the arms, then.” His fingers slipped over the curve of my shoulders, and the crazy began.
Daemon was up and off the couch in a nanosecond, forcing Blake to back away. I took a deep, patient breath and faced the alien.
He glared Blake into submission. “I think I can help her with this.”